About

“I’m Okay With This” is a colloquial expression and reaction image used to convey one’s mild approval of another individual’s action or statement. On image boards and discussion forums, the phrase can be used to signify to one’s tolerance towards a subject topic that had been previously regarded with reservation or skepticism, similar to the usage of At First I Was Like or Not Bad.

Origin

The phrase was first introduced to the online audiences through a cartoon strip illustrated by the creator of Staredad comic K.C. Green[1] and uploaded sometime in 2010. Titled “Dad Wasps Oh No,” the comic illustrates a surreal adventure of a character named Andy, who receives a tank made of legos for his 16th birthday, suddenly falls off a cliff and finds himself teleported to France. The phrase can be seen in the last pane of the comic.

The earliest known usage of the reaction image can be found in a FARK discussion thread[4] about a CNN article titled “Study: Young Americans less religious than their parents,” which was posted on February 18th, 2010.

Spread

The image macro was posted during the invasion of a flash animation game called Robot Unicorn Attack on 4chan’s /v/ (videogame) board in late February 2010.

Throughout the year of 2010, the phrase continued to spread across different imageboards on 4chan, including /sp/ (sports)[8], /v/ (videogames)[7] and /r9k/ (experimental)[5] boards among others. As noted in the screenshot (shown below), the phrase has been also used as a greentext story topic.

Beginning in October that same year, the reaction image became even more commonplace following the massive influx of My Little Pony media onto 4chan’s /b/ (random) board, signifying increased tolerance of the cartoon series among mostly male users in the community. The hashtag “I’m okay with this” has become also associated with Tumblr posts that may be met by mixed opinions.